Albion, IA Fire, Aug 1904

Marshalltown, Aug. 4.-- The most destructive fire that has occurred in this county for years, at midnight Tuesday night broke out at the Kubuka & Company drug store at Albion, a little town seven miles northwest of this city, and very nearly wiped the little town out of existence.

The fire spread rapidly and was soon beyond control. As near as can be learned the conflagration started on the outside of a shed in the rear of the drug store, and while no investigation has been made officially, persistent rumors are to the effect that the fire was of incendiary origin.

The flames spread rapidly to the buildings north in the same block, and in a very short time about $14,000 worth of property was reduced to a smoldering mass of charred timbers and ashes.

The buildings, with one exception, were of frame construction, and that building was only veneered, and all those facing High street in the town, in the same block, from street to street and back to the alley were completely wiped out, and had it not been for a few large trees that broke the force of the heat and flames, and plenty of hard fighting, the fire would have undoubtedly have jumped the street and destroyed all that part of the little town lying north of the drug store in which the fire originated.

The buildings of the Odd Fellows and Masons, the best in the town, were among those destroyed, and the Woodmen of the World lost their outfits and their paraphernalia, which they had stored in a rented hall.